What You Do To Me
by SunshineAndSecrets
Summary: Eragon is burning from the inside out. Arya is the cause, but of course she doesn't know. No surprise there. Eragon is willing to suffer for her, but how bad is it? You all wanted a sequel, well here it is!
1. Pain and Love

Eragon was doubled over in mind-numbing, nerve-wrenching pain. He wasn't in the heat of battle, nor in Galbatorix's Castle, but on a deserted elvin path, deserted except for one elf, the one whom he hated with a vigor and loved with all his soul. Arya. He gasped aloud in pain at the thought of her name. What a cruel minstrel fate is, treating us like pawns in a game. One day, we are at the top of the world, and with a swish of the wrist, all hopes and dreams are gone with a gust of the wind, just to satisfy our cruel overseer's desire. Eragon was face to face with the one thing in the world he could not live without, and the one thing in the world he could never have.

Imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like, if when ever you thought of the most important thing in your world, nay, instead, everytime you breathed in, the sensation of a dagger slicing between your ribs would issue you a crippling pain. What if that oxygen were to tell you that you were not allowed to have it, if it avoided your gasping lungs without heed of your needs and all consuming desires. Worse, what if said oxygen laughed at your efforts, for to it, you did not really need oxygen in the first place, only thought you did. Then the oxygen leaves you where you be, to collapse on the ground, grasping at life. Arya was Eragon's oxygen.

Eragon's eyes flicked up to the Elf now staring down at him, normal facial expressions replaced with her favorite new expression, a stone mask, which kept her face blank and expressoinless. His eyes narrowed into a glare. "Follow me." He growled between his teeth.

"Very Well." It's a good thing that elves are naturally curious, else Arya may not have gone.

Eragon, forsaking the path for the untamed wilderness, forged a new trail between the sparse underbrush and the anchient trees, sentinals to their emotional battle. Even though Eragon bade it not to, the thought of how close Arya was slipped past his carfully erected boundries in his mind. He gasped, and for the hundredth time this week, if not this day, and toppled to the ground. This found the lovce forlorned pair in a small clearing next to a bubbling brooke.

"Here is fine." He gasped between clenched teeth, bared in a snarl of defiance against the pain.

"Why do you do that?" Her voice was as hollow as a log.

"What?"

"You seem to be in pain. I am wondering why." Her voice was now cold and direct, as if she were commanding an army, instead of being concerned for a persons well being.

Eragon did not feel inclined to answer, so he did not, only let out a small sigh. Arya bristled at the fact that he had ignored her.

"You need not be so infantile Eragon, I expected that you had brought me out here for a reason. It is only fair that I seek the answers as to why."

Even though he had heard her perfectly, he asked again. "Pardon me, what was it you asked?"

"Why?"

Eragon snapped. Months of the elves cramped life style had worn his edges down; now he was done being what everyone else wanted him to be. He was done playing puppet for all the different powerheads in the land. He was done being that little kid everyone thought he was. Going one step at a time, and seeing as he had been provided with a perfectly good oppertunity, he decided to set Arya straight first. "You wish to know what ails me, do you not?" His voice was deadly calm.

She nodded tersely.

He voice raised so that he was nearly shouting. "What do you wish me to say? I hold myself together because you're hurting me? Because I feel as though I'm being stabbed in the heart? Because I feel my sanity is about to take leave of my body!? Because you are the reason I live and the reason I wish to _die_!? The reason I often have trouble breathing, why I am loosing sleep and eating barely enough is because everytime I think of YOU, talk to you, see you, even _smelling_ you causes one hundrend red hot swords to plunge into my heart. You are my _oxygen_; I can not take leave of you, for that would surely kill me, though in my special case, being with you, even near you, is well sending me to the same fate! You chastise me for not sharing my feelings and emotions with you, yet you never let anyone, not even your own _mother_, know who _you_ really are! All I've ever wanted to do was make you happy and well, and then every day you dangle yourself in front of me! I feel like a starving dog on a leash, a haunch of meat just barley out of my reach! Fate, and don't think you play little part in this, has placed me a hairs bredth in front of the one thing that I want the most and the one thing I can never have. So if you ever see me killed in battle, stabbed with a sword or arrow or something of the like, rest in peace at night, and know that what you have done was much, much worse, and that I died with pleasure."

By the time he finsihed with a simmering huff, Arya was starring at him wide-eyed, open mouthed, and with tears slowly leaking down her face. This for some reason angered him as well, _Why should she care?_ "Don't you cry on my behalf, it's not as though you care! All you're probably worried about is how this will jepordize your chances of killing the king. After all, what do my feelings mean, I'm just a childish rider, or so it would seem. Well, I'm not your tool, Arya, nor your pet, and nobody else's either. Stop playing with me, because I'm fed up! I'm not your toy! I'm not Shadslayer, or Argetlam, or anything other than Eragon. If you are not content with who Eragon is, than I'm sorry about your luck." He glared at her, she, whose tears were now flowing freely.

"Oh, Eragon, Eragon! I didn't, I never... you weren't... I didn't know... I-" She choked off with a sob. She took a half step towards him, and the firey pain ripped through him, causing him to shudder and collapse on the ground again, assuming a fetal position until the pain subsided enough to move.

"Arya." Wince. Though his voice was softer now, coddling, showing the other half of his feelings for her. "Arya, I love you. Don't cry... This is the price of love, I am willing to pay it." He gasped out as his lungs burned.

"Why, why would you do this? For _me_?"

"Arya, you have a twisted view of yourself. You don't have to be anyone other than Arya Drottning. Not Arya the Ambassador, nor Arya the Egg Courier. Not even Princess Arya, heir to the throne. I don't care who you are or what you look like, 'cause you'll always just be Arya to me." Then he blacked out.


	2. Arya's Emotion

You all wanted a squel and here it is. It is very short, and I know it, but I don't lose faith in me, I'm writing more! I'm planning on making this a series, though I doubt I'll ever be able to recreate the emotion I put into the first chapter. I was going through an emotional time then, and was able to vent my feelings into the writing, which gave you what you all seemed to love so much. I'm sorry if this disappoints any of you, but I tried my hardest!

Arya stared down at the rider, brown hair tusled in the light breeze. It was silent except for the wind in the trees and her jagged breathing. How could he feel that way? Was it true? He seemed mearly sleeping, as he lay unconsious on the sun parched ground before her. His breathing was even, and his eyes were closed without the tell-tale twitching of uneasy sleep. Arya wasn't sure what to do. She knew he needed the rest; the puffy bruises under his eyes told her that much, the product of many sleepless nights and hard, pain filled days.

She had witnessed his steady decline over the past months, but she felt that it did not concern her, so she stuck to the everyday paths of her life and let him go his own way. She had had no idea what was causing his temper to shorten and his eyes to droop at the heigt of the day. Quite frankly she hadn't cared. It had nothing to do with her, or so she thought. Oh, how wrong she was. It had everything to do with her. It was her. His dramatic personality change, his loss of social activity, the lack of luster in his eyes was all her fault. And she had had no idea.

She had been hurting him. The one person in the world who cared about her, not Princess Arya, or the Egg Courier, or anything else but her. She was his only valued friend and she was practically killing him... She hadn't a clue. Everytime he saw her, it caused him pain. Red hot swords, torture tables, poisoned, shot, it didn't matter. He had been putting up with it for months, apparently, and finally he had broken. He had run out of the pain reserves, her had run out of resistance. He had been giving her his whole heart and he had just... run out. So he had finally collapsed, right after he had told her exactly what he thought, and exactly how he felt... He was going to be out for a while.

So there she was, in the middle of Ellesmera, birds singing and emerald shadows flitted across the ground. Eragon lay unconsious at her feet, but it wasn't long before she collapsed onto her knees and joined him. His strong words broke through her High Princess facade and one tear fell from her eyes, trailing down her chin, and was quickly joined by many others. What should she do? Take him to the infirmary? What would she say? _'Excuse me, but Eragon's unrequitted feelings for me have been causing him excruciating pain, and he collapsed in the middle of the forest. Would you tend to him?'_ Not likely. She couldn't just leave him there, and she had no idea where Saphira was. She decided to try and contact her mentally, hoping she was close by.

She flung her mind out in all directions, brushing every living being within a two mile radius. She felt birds, moths, mice, deer, wolves, wild hogs, and even a few elves but nothing like the vast expance of the dragon's mind. She sighed. She couldn't leave him here and she had no where to take him, so she'd have to stay here until he woke. She rose shakily, and it was moments before she trusted her wobbling knees to move her forward. She checked his pulse rutinly, and after she was sure he was simply sleeping, she gathered dry pine kneedles and made him a cunshined area to lay on. The intence fragrence of the pine sap sent her mind back to earlier days, those of her childhood, and she stilled her body as daydreams enveloped her waking mind.

_She was running through the forest, the trees were much taller then, or maybe she was just shorter than she was now. Her tinkling laughter was accompanied by that of others as she dashed along, weaving in and out of ferns to avoid the morning dew. 'Hurry up, Vanir! Faolin's gaining on us!' Vanir laughed and sped up. They crossed a small path, turning onto it. Vanir had passed her, and was far ahead, she saw his white tunic vanish around the bend she was coming up to._

_The children's game of tag was almost at an end, as Faolin was almost in tackling distance of her. the noise behind her suddenly dissapeard, and she heard an 'oof' and a muffled curse. Skidding to a stop, Arya turned around, expecting to see Faolin sprawled out on the ground behind her, but instead did a double take; there was no one there. She jogged back along the trail she had just come and looked around on the ground. 'Faolin? Faolin? Where did you go?' Her voice was light and rang with the innocense of childhood, it was light and acsented with a smile, a smile that she no longer knew._

_She was about to call out to Vanir, when something hit her from the side, and sent her sprawling off the path, through the wet ferns and skidding through the discarded pine needles that carpeted the forest floor. Their sharp scent filled her sences and she was dazed. A weight was pressing on her side. She tried to sit up but was unable. Then a laughing rang out loud and clear from somewhere nearby. Her vison cleared to see Faolin half sprawled on top of her. Arya was about to start yelling at him when he said 'Tag, you're it.' She had had to join in on his mirth then, and neither took care to move from their close position on the forest floor._

_'Arya Drotiningu! Come to me this instant' Her mothers voice rang out from behind them and quickly subdued their mirth. Tears grazed her eyes, reluctant refusal at what she knew was to come. 'Daughter, arise from the ground and come to me at once! Look at your new garbs, they're filthy! You can not be seen in public if you can not act up to your title! Leave the pesant boy and come with me! We have a council meeting to attend and you must sit in with the war council to gain experience! Now, Child! Now!' With that, queen Inslanzadi had swept back along the path, leaving the two children stunned and Arya in tears._

Arya was thrown back into the present, to find herself in the same position, but was unaware of the time. Eragon still lay peacfully on the bed of pine she had made for him. Her childhood had always been thus, all work and no play. Is that how it had been for Eragon? All hard work but no time to relax, nothing to vent his frustrations or malfeelings? She knew very well what it had turned her into, was that how Eragon would end up too? It pained her to imagine never seeing his reasuring, boyish smile again. She couldn't remember her own smile, and only vagly knew her laugh, or at least the hollow thing it had become.

Thr truth was, she couldn't afford to show motion anymore. She had mastered the art of blocking out the pain emotion brought her, the same pain Eragon was facing and the same pain that had sent him spiraling into the calm embrace of unconsiousness. Everything reminded her of him. Of the loving elf who had alway stayed by her side, the one who made her happy, the one who had loved her for who she was, and the one who had reassuringly held her hand when a game of tag had turned into one of many childhood nightmares. Everything she did, saw, or said reminded her of Faolin, and unless she was always to be unconsiouns, she had traded no pain for no feelings.

Eragon had not. He was stronger than her, braver than her. He loved her more than he feared pain, and she knew that pain well. But why? Why would he do that for her? For the elf that 'Didn't Care for Him', for the strange one, the odd elf out? She was nothing special, had no special skills, was not better than anyone else. If anything, she was less than ordinary, she didn't even have the happy attitude of an elf. She was a hollow shell of what an elf should be, and she knew it. Why didn't Eragon? Or did he know and he just chose to ignore it? She wasn't worth it, he deserved better than what she had to offer him. Why wouldn't he turn away from her?

Everyone else had...

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Well, that's the end of Chapter two! I know it's very short and I'm writing more. Don't lose faith, more is on the way! Please read the messege at the top of this fic, if this didn't meet the standards the first chapter set. I'm sorry if that's the case! I'll spend more time on the next chapter if you think I need to, but the only way I'll know is if you review! *HINT* *HINT*


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